Back to toddler group on Friday after a gap of 2 weeks, which was excellent as usual despite missing some of the regular mums. Had varying comments on my bump - from big to 'very compact' and decided to take on board the latter! Am certainly looking very different than when pregnant with Jody; not so much all-over weight gain but a more prominent rounder bump. Weird.

My parents came round for dinner on Friday evening while Roj was working late and I caught up on their visit to the Lion King and the Turner, Whistler, Monet exhibition (which Roj managed to glean EY private view tickets for in a couple of weeks). Discussions over whether commercial art can ever be regarded in the same light as cutting edge stuff. I don't think so.

Saturday Jody actually woke at 6:30 (despite threatening at 4:45 for about 20 minutes) which we definitely regard as a lie-in. Who knows whether this 2-hour-nap plan is working but it was a welcome respite from the 5-something mornings. My parents came over again in the morning and took Jody to the park while Roj worked and I faffed around in John Lewis. They left mid-afternoon after Pret sandwiches.

We cut Jody's hair for the first time on Saturday afternoon. Have been meaning to do it for a while, but her hyperactive state hasn't made it easy. She sat in her little chair while Roj distracted her with a balloon and I did 4 snips across the back to get rid of the mullet style she's been sporting. She was very distracted (particularly by scissor noises close at hand) but the job was overall a success.

Watched Natural Born Killers in the evening while Roj worked, which Roj has insisted for weeks that I'd already seen (I hadn't). Very unsavoury watching but I did appreciate the originality. Am I turning into a PG girl?

Sunday we did minor clear-up stuff in the morning (mostly of bags and boxes from our trip up to Shropshire last weekend - it's like Krypton Factor trying to find places to put everything) and took Jody to Giraffe for lunch. Took advantage of her sleep in the afternoon for a much-needed nap myself while Roj finished off his work, which should have fortified me for the 5:40 wake-up call this morning (although I still lay dozing on the sofa while allowing Jody to watch CBeebies). Also compiled a photo album of wedding photos at last - as our 5 year anniversary approaches we felt it was about time!

Went to the gym this morning for the normal weights & cardio workout then braved Ikea in a vain search for leather storage boxes. Heading over to Habitat & Heals this afternoon in the hope of more success though their websites don't give me much hope. Finally had a conversation with the Montessori nursery that Jody's supposed to be starting in April. They gave me a very strong impression when I looked round in autumn last year that there was a space for her, but now are hedging their bets. I'll be very disappointed if she hasn't been given one, particularly in the light of Lucy having been awarded a space for Albie (also starting April) despite applying after me. I think their admission process leaves something to be desired.

Am also expecting a home visit from a new midwife this afternoon who is coming over to discuss my birth plan and check that the place is suitable. She seemed a little confused on the phone about why she was coming. She also told me that I could have any midwife from one of three groups attending my birth, so it's highly unlikely I'll get anyone I already know (given that I've only met one midwife so far). Oh for the Elizabeth Seton Birth Center and their continuity of care policy!

Dinner with Mike and Jill has been postponed til Wednesday so the good news is that I can hope to be more refreshed than currently - after the 5:40 morning and the lack of Jody nap this afternoon (after 1.5 hours sitting outside her bedroom I felt it was time to call it a day). And in other good news Roj might be home from work in time for dinner for the first time in several weeks. Better go to Waitrose then.

I look forward to the day when my blog entry doesn't include a whinge about how knackered I am. Not today though. I'm seeing double today. Jody has turned into a reliable 5:15am alarm clock and I was struggling when it was 6:30! For a while she acquiesced to dozing in our bed for the extra hour but this morning she was having none of it so I took her upstairs to read and let daddy get an extra hour's sleep (taking pity on him for working late this last fortnight or so). I'm trying to sort out her sleep pattern by restricting her daytime nap to 2 hours but right now it's having no effect. I should be grateful that she slept through til 5:15 though, because Tuesday night she was awake and in need of company between 11:50 and 12:20 and then 3:40 and 4:20. It's almost exciting to see what the next night will bring in terms of toddler waking. Almost I said.

My parents are in town. They very kindly brought the missing cot part down on the train so we don't have to call on the generosity of Camilla (will have to find another excuse to go up to hers for a natter!) Will have dinner with them tomorrow and spend Saturday morning with them, but they're actually in town on (my dad's) business so staying in a hotel.

Struggled at the hands of Jody's sleep issues on Tuesday with one of the hardest days I've had with her. There was nothing fundamentally wrong except her refusal to sleep in the day after napping in the car on the way back from the gym. She then proceeded to whinge non-stop from about 1:30 to 6:30pm, most vociferously when I took her for a walk in Regent's Park in snow showers. I felt quite sorry for her but couldn't let her doze off at 5:30 as she wished and so incurred her absolute wrath until I finally put her to bed at 7 - with nothing I did having any positive effect whatsoever. Very exhausting indeed (for fat ol' me).

Wednesday was better due to swimming and today was broken up by the excitement of having Mormor round for lunch. Took a while to get her to sleep but she eventually dozed for a good two hours, allowing me to sleep for 30 minutes - which makes all the difference.

I was surprised to see myself take on the next-due role at antenatal class today. Does that mean the birth is nearly upon us? It's been so long (it's actually gone quicker than first time around, but I'm much more focused on the birth than the pregnancy so I'm looking specifically at week 40 rather than counting down) that I've felt I'll never get there. In actual fact I could give birth in 3 to 8 weeks and be allowed to do it at home, so I'd better get on with organising things for baby 2.

Very nice to receive a letter from Yi Shun in the last few days, letter-writing being a rather forgotten art nowadays, albeit a welcome one. Will try and find the time to return the favour in all those quiet moments I get. Ahem. Also nice to get back in touch with Peta for the first time in a while on a quest for sibling advice.

Interesting to have snow in London for perhaps the first time in my memory. None of it has stuck though - other than occasionally on rooftops and cars - so it's not like we'll be having snowball fights and teaching Jody how to ski just yet. I miss NY at times like these - and the winter that the cars in the street turned into snowdrifts and people got to work on their cross-country skis. Sven, meanwhile, had a snow day today and revelled in the delights of not going to school. I remember how exciting those days were in my youth - I expect it hasn't waned for him.

Had a lovely evening with the girls last Wednesday in Clapham. Thanks to Charlotte for organising it and Rosie for providing far too much cheesecake for pudding! With 3 girls having weddings pending this year, and another just acquiring a nephew, the conversation lingered around weddings and babies for much of the time - which amused me somewhat but is hardly surprising. I think most men would have been highly disappointed that we succumbed to such a girlie stereotype (but we did touch on male stripping to even it out a bit)!

Got back to bed just before I turned into a pumpkin, but had to spend an hour at 3am (snoozing, admittedly) getting Jody back to sleep, only to have her creep into our bedroom at 5:30 to start the day. Eurgh.

So Thursday I was a bit like a zombie at antenatal class, though didn't get a chance to explain why to the instructor, who said if my energy levels were low I should slow down a bit. Maybe, maybe not. (And if I can't shake this cold soon, I might have to).

Unfortunately it only got worse the next couple of nights - Jody woke at 12:15 and 3 and then finally 5:30. She's taking advantage of her new-found freedom to wander into our room and ever since Marbella - when I had to be sure she was asleep before leaving her to the dangers of wandering out of our bedroom and straight down the stairs - she prefers the luxury of Mummy being around until she dozes off. Unfortunately this also means that during the night she fetches me in to help her sleep, even though she doesn't cry and enthusiastically goes back into bed. Will have to work on the gradual retreat method to get her sleeping confidence back.

Got lots done at the weekend - did a 24-hour dash up to Shropshire to pick up the little baby things (I thought there wasn't much, but our car was bursting at the seams on the way back), and for an important visit to Maggie and Zoe. Got back late Saturday evening and parked outside the house for convenience. Had a bit of a rush on Sunday morning when Roj heard a tow-truck and looked out of our window to see the men lowering the claw over our car. Seems we'd missed the parking suspension notice the night before. We should feel lucky that the ticket will only cost us £50 instead of the tow cost as well, but we've got a bit of a knack for parking ticket acquisition that's getting annoying - not to mention expensive. Sigh.

Another annoyance was to find that we didn't pick up all the co-sleeper cot at Shropshire on Saturday. It was in pieces and wrapped in brown paper (from being shipped from NY) and I assumed once I'd got to packets marked 'desk' that I'd got all the cot packages. Not so. Which means Roj may have to make yet another quick trip up to Shropshire at some point if we can't work out an easier way. Grr.

On the bright side Jody's sleep has got a bit better the last few days - she slept like a dream on Friday night at my parents house where they'd invented a very successful sleeping set-up (successful but not romantic as it involves her sleeping between Roj and me), and then the last two nights she hasn't done any parent-fetching and has even let us lie in til 6:30 in the mornings. This may be due to the fact that she's been off her food all weekend and puked vehemently yesterday. She seems much better today, though more inclined than usual to whinge at nothing. I haven't got the gym booked either (which is good in retrospect), so I'm just hoping I can keep her distracted enough this morning not to have us both climbing the walls by lunchtime.

I was right. Didn't want to come back at the end of it. Our 5 days in Marbella was just lovely. All we did was soak up the (20+ degree) sunshine, play on the beach and sit by the pools (which you'd have to crack the ice to go into). The villa had everything we needed though it was a little dark and hard-marble-cornered for our liking, and the location of the two main bedrooms on either side of the stairs necessitated having Jody in with us. Still, the amenities were just fine and we didn't spend all that much time inside. We ate lunches out and dinners in so it was easy to deal with Jody and keep her routine in tact, and all in all it was a very relaxing and enjoyable few days which we could happily have extended into a couple of weeks.

The flights were interesting mind you. It's the first time Jody had been on a plane for a year (since our return from NZ) so it was all a bit trial and error. We'd chosen afternoon nap-time to fly in the hope that she'd doze off but it was all too exciting so she got hyperactive and difficult to manage. Luckily the outward flight was short due to tailwinds and the return flight was fairly empty but there was definitely a period during the latter that we could have done with some new distraction tactics. Didn't help to have two miserable gits sitting in front of us who were clearly annoyed at sitting within listening distance of a tot. I feel for all you anti-toddler people but really - what do you expect? Eventually she dozed off in my arms after multiple lullaby renditions (maybe that was what the miserable gits objected to!) and we had silence for the final 45 minutes. Phew. Goodness knows how Sonia managed to get back to Aus recently with Caitlin (19 mths) and Olivia (4 mths) and just a good friend for company. Hats off to her.

Unfortunately neither mine nor Jody's cold/cough abated much during the trip, although nights weren't too bad. Jody was well enough to take to swimming today but the cold part hit me with a vengeance from yesterday so I'm feeling more than usually knackered (can this be possible?) I'm hoping it all clears up by the weekend so we can't be blamed for infecting any of the grandparents who we're visiting to pick up all the little-baby stuff that's currently in storage in Shropshire.

Tonight I'm off to Charlotte's house for pizza and cheesecake with the 260 gals who I haven't seen for a while - should be fun. Then I have copious gym sessions booked for the rest of the week to burn off all the Marbella ice-cream calories. Am missing running, but due to stitchy ligament problems, am probably going to give it a miss now, barring the odd half hour on the treadmill.

Our stairs carpet is going to be replaced next Wednesday, which I'm much looking forward to, as it signals the end of our flat-renovation process which turned from 3 months into nearly a year. The work should take less than half a day so I'm optimistic that by the time I come back from swimming all will be complete. I won't know what to do with myself! (Although I still have a bit of clearing up pending).

Busy few weeks coming. Or should I make that months? I suppose it's better than twiddling my thumbs, although I'm not sure I'd remember how to do that ...

Blog slacking occurring over the last few days. Nothing to report I suppose. Of interest anyway.

That said, I did enjoy Friday more than expected. Jody was such a different person in the morning that I decided she was completely over her lurgy and took her to toddler group regardless (tut tut!). Also had Alex round at about 12:15 for a leisurely lunch. Brilliant to catch up with her with Jody asleep for a change. We all love Jody, but having a bit of adult conversation with the internal surveillance switched off is a treat. Followed the visit with a long phone conversation with Yi Shun who is mad and fab as usual. Very much hoping she pulls off her anticipated trip to Blighty later in the year.

Friday evening I had an official freak-out session about the impending addition to our family. Less about him than about the impact it will have on my relationship with Jody. All brought about by a brief conversation with new second-time-mum Libby at toddler group who was having a bad day of it and lamenting her ability to commit to either her 20-month-old son or her 8-week-old daughter as she wished. Roj reminded me that I had my moments of anxiety pre-Jody and that'd all turned out OK but it took me a while to get it out of my system. In fact I guess it remains my biggest concern, though I have to rationalise with the thought that a new baby will impact a family and its relationships regardless of the age of the siblings so it's just something that has to be dealt with at the time. It's certainly not a bad enough thought to deter myself (or most people, for that matter) from having more than one.

The weekend was quite efficient in the long run. Spent a long time on Saturday trawling the Heals, Habitats and Ikeas of this world on a rug-seeking mission. Ended up buying two in John Lewis to compare in situ but decided we needed to upsize our favourite of the two which we did on Sunday. A very practical natural-colour berber style affair. Wonder how long that'll stay nice! Took Jody to the playground on Sunday morning and had quite a sociable time of it (rare to see so many of my mum friends in the park at the weekend, since it's usually daddy duty time). Unfortunately Roj had to go into the office Sunday afternoon so I made a failed attempt to catch up with domestic activities which culminated only in a nice lasagne (which Jody will be polishing off tonight, with any luck).

Nice weekend, but exhausting due to lack of r & r time. Doesn't really matter though, does it, when we're off to Marbella (in bright sunshine and 18 degrees if weather.com is anything to go by) for 5 days this weekend.

Yesterday Jody contracted the very nasty sore throat and cough that I've had brewing over the last few days (culminating in an almost sleepless night on Sunday). I was hoping she'd avoid it since it's a particularly vicious one, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Am plying her with Tixylix as usual in the hope that she'll be better for our trip. Wish I could say the same for myself.

Enjoyed the gym in the morning though, regardless of her and my state of health. Did some very useful things for the rest of the day including returning something to Ikea (only wish we realised they take 30% off opened returns beforehand) and heading off for my 32 week appointment with my midwife. Nothing spectacular to report: I have a "nice sized baby" which means it's not big and not small apparently. He is head down already, though of course that could change in time. My blood pressure and everything else is fine and that's about it. The next contact I have with her is a home visit in a fortnight when she'll check our flat is viable for a homebirth (wonder if that includes assessing the sound-proofing of the walls!?). Will have to check for Roj sabotage before she turns up I think! Have I mentioned I'm aiming at a homebirth this time around? Then I have a couple more appointments at the clinic before they come round with the 'homebirth kit' at 37 weeks. Which is only 5 weeks away. Hey ho.

Today we've been outside all day long in glorious sunshine and mildish temperatures. Over two hours at the playground this morning exhausted Jody to the point of sleep at midday. Had to employ singing and rocking techniques 40 minutes later to lull her back after she woke coughing but was then surprised to doze off and wake when she did at 2:20. Wow. Spent the afternoon on a long walk with Rachel and Amy in the park - each tot misbehaving at one moment or another. Couldn't believe it was already ten to 6 when we got back from Starbucks. The day disappeared.

Roj is in the US again these next couple of days and then we're off to Marbella on Thursday afternoon. Am getting almost excited at the prospect now, particularly as the weather forecast seems so favourable. Just know I won't want to come back at the end of it!

Oh dear. Jody's puking again. I guess it was time to test out the wipe-clean-ness of the floors anyway (they hold up very well). I thought it might have been a one-off at lunchtime but everything since - including fluids - has re-emerged and she is looking yellower than usual. Poor love. I guess that means no toddler group tomorrow, and potentially no lunch with Alex either. Not really fair to pass on lurgy is it?

Hope she doesn't wake up at 3 like last night though, and refuse to go back to sleep for an hour. Quite gruelling when you need sleep yourself.

Our week has been standard though, mainly. I was a bad mum on Monday because I was so knackered. Went to the gym as usual (and she loves the creche nowadays) but outside of that just couldn't muster the energy to give her the entertainment she deserved. Spent most of Tuesday shopping for various small items of baby clothing that she'll need for our trip to Marbella next week (can't have her walking around in fur-lined boots now can we?) Also went to check out this 3-bed flat over the other side of Baker Street. It was nicer than I imagined but I disliked the weasel of a sales guy so much that it coloured my impressions. Speaking to Roj about it later, we both agree that we'll stay in this flat for the time being (now that we've spent so much on it!) - at least until after the new baby is born and established.

Swimming was great on Wednesday. Jody is absolutely fearless in the water. She'll happily run and jump from the big polystyrene mat and submerge straight to the bottom. She's delighted when she comes up for air again, even though I don't grab her until she starts to surface naturally. I never knew kids could be so comfortable underwater.

After having been to the park pre-swim Jody was well up for a long nap yesterday afternoon so I capitalised myself (after doing some odd bits of work first). In fact she slept for over three hours (the start of the bug maybe?) so we had to shelve our afternoon with Lucy and Albie (2 yrs). I was intending to go this afternoon instead but of course the puking wasn't really conducive. Next week maybe.

Nothing much else to report. I had to let down one of my newest prospects after succumbing to stressful sleeplessness at the start of the week. Just couldn't see myself coping with the extra work for what seems to be a very professional international company. He wanted it quickly too, and with my availability that's a bit of a pipe-dream. Plenty of other bits of work hanging over my head though, which I will aim to get through (mostly) this weekend. Also need to get the flat completely sorted (plans for that this week have gone out of the window for one reason or another) so that I can welcome more weasels into my home next week to get the place valued. Mainly for curiosity's sake now.

Definitely looking forward to escaping Blighty next week. Blighty in itself isn't bad, but a 3-bed villa in southern Spain with hubby and toddler is infinitely more inviting. Just hoping there's no torrential rain or snow even. I don't care if it's not sunny but it would be nice to walk around without a big puffy jacket for a change.